Mariel Dunne
Description Beautiful, certainly, but that beauty only goes skin-deep, and what lies beneath has chased away more than one brave individual. Perhaps it's the look in her greyish-green eyes, or the scowl that rises to readily to her dark pink lips. Or the stance she assumes when spoken to, with her hands on her hips and her shoulders hunching forward as if preparing for a fight. Her face holds the slender features of her sidhe blood with a gently sloping jaw and ears with the tiniest point. Sensitive about her ears, she's nonetheless become defiant regarding them, and often tucks her hair back, all but daring someone to comment on them. Her caramel blonde hair falls in gentle waves to the middle of her back, often drawn up in a loose braid or ponytail to stay out of her eyes. Of average height, Mariel possesses the curves of a Renaissance icon, complete with miniscule waist and petite hands and feet. Preferring to show off her waist, she wears low-rise jeans and midriff shirts, often in colours and styles considered "punk." Layering on rubber bracelets, spiked dog collars and dangling pendants, she completes the look with heavy boots, either platform or spiked heels, to make the most of her stature. Occasionally, her sarcasm mellows and then real beauty shows in her face as her calmer side steps forward. When she's excited about something or pleased with the day, a pleasant smile draws her lips up, and her greyish-green eyes light up. Her features soften into a classical beauty, and even her hair seems to fall more gracefully. Rare, those moments, and treasured by those who have managed to befriend her. Personality The first thing anyone learns about Mariel is her overwhelming and razor-sharp sarcasm. It's her first response and defense, and often the only impression people have of her is that of a spoiled brat with a massive sense of entitlement. Her scowling doesn't help that image, nor does her oft-repeated complaint about how much the world sucks. Not many have managed to move beyond that point, but those who have find that there's a keen intelligence behind those eyes. With her interest in gaming, Mariel's never one to step back and not give a new game a try, and that is where much of what is pleasant in her shows. Although she's a terrible loser, the young woman is remarkably patient about teaching a game to someone inexperienced. With that strange patience comes the strong duties of friendship. Once Mariel's a friend, she never loses that sense of responsibility, and will go to incredible lengths to help someone. Hiding beneath her vocal sense of entitlement and her irritable temper is an overwhelming insecurity. Unwanted from birth, Mariel was never made to feel loved or cherished, and grew believing that she was wholly worthless because she never Chrysalized. When she finally broke free of her mother's household, she had already developed her spiky external personality. Never would she admit out loud that she's afraid no one truly cares for her, but the evidence is there to those who look closely enough. Pre-Game History Born to a Fiona sidhe duchess, Mariel was an embarrassment before she'd drawn her first breath. Not that the infant wasn't comely or well-formed, but her father was not the man whom her mother called husband. The result of a Beltaine celebration, too much wine and a Ceilican's feline charm, Mariel was her mother's dirty little secret, and the duchess never failed to let that be known to her daughter. With the strange mix of fae cat and sidhe in her blood, Mariel was a wild child, defiant and loud at the beginning. Trying to rule her mother's household through tyranny only got the toddler beaten into quiet, and Mariel soon learned to avoid her mother's presence, flinching away from the duchess's perfume. The kitchens were her haven, and she fled to them at the first chance every day, playing beneath the tables and enjoying the company of the duchess's steward, a nocker, and his pooka wife. The true trial of Mariel's life began before she'd reached five years of age. Certain that the circumstances of her conception, as well as her unusual parentage, would bring forth a fae soul, the duchess had prepared to accept the girl as her proper heir as soon as she Chrysalized. Living in a freehold, surrounded by fae, it was certainly only a matter of time before Mariel's fae soul awakened and she could begin her education to carry on the duchess's legacy. However, past the age of four- when many childlings first open their eyes to the wonder of the Dreaming- Mariel showed no signs of approaching Chrysalis, and her mother began to take matters into her own hands. The first attempts were to overfill the freehold with Glamour by inviting artists, storytellers, musicians and traveling actors to perform before the assembled fae. When that failed to have an effect- Mariel showed a surprising musical aptitude, and spent quite a bit of time banging on the kitchen pots and pans in imitation of some of the music she'd heard- the duchess turned to more extreme matters. Her reasoning was quite simple: the girl's fae soul would emerge in a flare of Glamour to save her life, so one simply had to try to kill her. And so she did. The haze of years between five and eleven were a constant battle between Mariel and her mother. Confused as to why her mother would try so constantly to hurt her, Mariel turned to her "father," the meek boggan who had married the duchess, willingly giving up any claim to the joint title of duke. Intimidated by his wife, and not particularly attached to the child that wasn't his, the boggan would do nothing to interfere. Early in life, Mariel learned that those who were supposed to love and care for her could not be trusted. Those she did find worthy of her love and trust were those her mother called 'commoners.' The young kinain found it a joke- those who were considered lesser displayed more of the 'noble' traits than the titled sidhe who flocked through her mother's court. At the age of twelve, having endured years of her mother's vicious remarks and constant attempts to "trigger her daughter's Chrysalis," Mariel's breaking point came. The Beltaine celebration was her mother's last-ditch attempt to trigger the girl's fae soul into awakening before she would become a wilder instead of a childling. Instead of touching the Dreaming within, the sidhe kinain was raped by a drunken satyr. With the instincts of a terrified child, Mariel turned to her mother for comfort and received only her mother's disdain. "You know better than to wander away from the fires with a satyr on such a night, and how am I to know you were not drinking yourself? One would think something would awaken you at last, but you are just utterly incorrigible." The duchess's icy eyes as she said those words sealed the shell growing around the kinain's heart, and she made arrangements to leave her mother's court the next day. Finding a home with her "father's" mortal kin, she found that the Waking World was as harsh as her mother's home had been. It was a harshness that suited her, however, as those who jeered at her slightly pointed ears and snubbed her jealously for her beauty were 'only mortal' and couldn't be expected to act any better. The chip on her shoulder became so large that it was nearly visible, and those subjected to Mariel's acidic tongue and quick fists learned to leave the sidhe kinain strictly alone. Gaming became her outlet, and online, Mariel was no half-blood, but a goddess: dominating every game she came across as she poured her frustrations into her play. A thoroughly modern child, she learned to live online, taking the real world as she had to, but giving it no more than it required. College was her escape, and she took it gladly, slipping away not a full week after her high school graduation. While her mother was relieved to have her daughter out of sight, she would not hear of Mariel living hand-to-mouth, and so the sidhe kinain had plenty of available money to set herself up in southern Illinois. There, she found the fae community to be the same as it had always been: slightly pitying of this poor "half-blood" who hadn't Chrysalized. Mariel returned their pity with cold sneers and turned to the gaming that was her mainstay. Through it, she met a young man named Alec Levy. Where others jeered, he listened. Her pointed ears were charming, he said, and he liked the fact that she could beat him at nearly every game they played together. One drunken night, Mariel told him about what she'd suffered at the satyr's hands, neatly censored for a mortal's understanding. Alec was horrified that her mother had done nothing, and his sympathy quickly turned into passion as he demonstrated his belief that she was not "used goods." Acquiring a bachelor's degree in computer science, Mariel received a job offer from a small company in Necropolis, Kansas as a web designer. Alec elected to remain in pursuit of his Master's degree, and while Mariel was hurt that he didn't care enough to come along, she considered it a done deal, bidding him goodbye with cold eyes to conceal the fact that she knew she wasn't important enough to follow. The first thing she did upon moving was to find a bar that she could use to unwind. Shadows Bar and Grill was known in the area for its' 'eccentric' clientele, and Mariel discovered why the moment she set her first beer down. Vampires, mages, werewolves, fae and any number of strange "other" people made the bar their meeting place of choice, and no few were interested in the snarky gamer girl who glared at the fae and drank her beer like a Marine. When a young sidhe approached her with something other than pity in his eyes, Mariel was tipsy enough to accept his conversation. And then his friendship. Busy with her work, she didn't notice how he became increasingly insistent on sharing time until the evening when he confessed that he believed himself in love with her. Mariel didn't laugh, but she was dangerously close to doing so. She did laugh, however, when his face fell upon hearing her history, and the fact that she wasn't his "perfect maiden." The distance in his eyes was enough to confirm it, and Mariel left his apartment without a backwards glance. Work in the computer industry was competitive, and the corporation she had been hired by mentioned that a Master's degree in Computer Science would go far in getting her a more lucrative position. As Mariel learned by experimentation, not formal teaching, she scoffed at their suggestion...until they fired her. Replaced by a smug geek with a Ph.D. the kinain took it as well as she did any other rejection: she hacked their system, trashed their files, added a few viruses for good measure and then packed her belongings. The University of Virginia at Brandenburg had sent her a letter of interest regarding a Master's program, and it was there that she went. Less than a month after settling into the routine of school and work, Mariel met a skinny Goth named Briar Dallas. Impressed by the girl's unbelievable artistic talent, charmed by her quiet way of speaking and fully able to believe her tales of ghostly interactions, Mariel latched onto Briar with a leech's grip. Here was someone who believed herself even more worthless, and who was even less deserving of the title. Briar took Mariel's friendship with the same soft acceptance she had everything else in her life, and gently introduced the kinain to Brandenburg's fae population. Hesitant to try this whole game again, Mariel had to be persuaded for more than a month before she would accompany Briar to the freehold Hearth Home. Shock one was the warm reception. Bertram Jumoke and Andrew Wiggin- who weren't a gay couple, as she initially believed (and still does, in the depths of her mind)- opened their doors, arms and hearts to the acerbic kinain. The childlings found Mariel's gaming skill fascinating to watch, even if she thought playing "Viva Pinata" for that many hours was ridiculous. (Neither of the grumps would allow her to play the bloodier games she preferred for the childlings' entertainment.) The pooka who hugged her within seconds was delightful, and the freehold itself was simply... welcoming. It confused Mariel, disarming her into talking to the redcap wilder who sat down on the stairs and commented on her Magic the Gathering notebook. Tyler Kincaid- a name she later cursed. The redcap had the same bruised heart as she, having been rejected forcibly by the sidhe he had pursued his entire life. Amelia Neally was everything Mariel considered a sidhe to be: icy, vicious, heartless and self-centered. Tyler had sacrificed everything for years in an attempt to earn her regard, and while Amelia used him for anything that came to mind without a second thought, she would not love him. Mariel found Tyler easy to talk to, and as the first year of college passed for them both, they found themselves fast friends. (It helped that he liked to defend Briar, too.) Friendship grew into something more when Mariel all but punched Amelia over a degrading word the sidhe used for Tyler, and not long afterwards, the redcap asked the kinain on an official date. Delighted, Mariel accepted, and within a week, they were dating steadily. The kinain thought she'd finally found someone who really didn't give a damn about her heritage and could take her temper without flinching. Their mutual interest in gaming and music gave them many pleasant evenings together, and when Tyler learned that Mariel could play the drums, he said they should make a band. It was idyllic- days at school, evenings spent at work with pleasant calls and text messages, nights whiled away practicing their music and writing songs, weekends of gaming. Mariel thought life would have been perfect save one thing: Tyler wouldn't... "progress" beyond a certain point. Despite the times they'd lain in each other's arms, panting and flushed, he always drew away and redirected his attention to something else. It was completely puzzling to Mariel that the redcap, an admitted virgin, wouldn't take the opportunities she so willingly presented him with. Tyler himself wouldn't explain at all, but shift the conversation to their latest song attempts. Months passed as Mariel turned the problem over in her mind. A Thanksgiving with the freehold gave her the answer, and it was one that she definitely didn't like. Tyler was, quite simply, saving himself for Amelia in a vague, unacknowledged hope that she'd take him back, despite having established a relationship with Iris Foster. When she confronted him with this, Tyler neither denied nor admitted it, but his evasive look told her everything she needed to know. Mariel swallowed a retort- the hardest thing she'd ever done- and simply let him turn their attention back to the song that needed work. When her patience broke, it did so with a vengeance, and Mariel's abrupt removal of Tyler from the band they'd created together formed a chasm that she refused to attempt bridging. Tyler, weary of struggling to balance his two 'loves,' turned back to Amelia without a backward glance, and Mariel began the long road to musical stability and self-acceptance. Pertinent Connections * Tyler Kincaid -he had been Mariel's first serious boyfriend. Regrettably for him, he let his poisonous relationship with Amelia Neally hold him back from learning what real love was and chose the life of a sycophant over building more of a relationship with Mariel. * Briar Dallas -with her caustic personality, Mariel doesn't make friends easily, and this is one she's held onto despite everything. Watching her friend age and wither day by day causes her profound anxiety, and she's terrified of the inevitable day that Briar's frail body fails entirely. Game History Highlights =Currently...= Category:Bookcase